


The Consequences of Letting One’s Hair Down

by panther



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:25:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught up in a changing world after the war, Narcissa lets herself have some fun with Charlie Weasley. Too bad fun has consequences in the form of an unexpected baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Consequences of Letting One’s Hair Down

The healer gives her the news and she throws him out of the manor herself, hitting him with a banishing charm strong enough to send him soaring back twenty feet into the gravel in front of her home. Eerily calm, she locks all the doors and shuts off the fireplaces before retreating to her bedroom and climbing into bed, pulling the covers up over her face in an attempt to block it all out. She has never been so grateful that she used some of the money the courts had left her with to buy Draco his own modest apartment in London. The thought of having to deal with anyone while processing the information is more than she can take. 

_Pregnant_. 

The healer insists that she is and the charm had shown her a grainy image of said child growing in her womb, but that still doesn’t mean that Narcissa wants to believe it. She is already a mother for Merlin’s sake, to a son of nineteen no less. Her last birthday has seen her turn forty-four and though it isn’t unheard of it is certainly rare for a woman her age to have a child, even for a witch. That is not the biggest problem for her though. No, the problem is that she is a divorced pureblood witch carrying the child of a twenty seven year old blood traitor. People have not forgotten her part in the war and Harry Potter’s testimony might have saved her from prison and got her divorce granted by the Ministry but it doesn’t make people _trust_ her. She can already imagine the things that people will say about her. There is probably enough of an age gap for some to call her a cradle snatcher even though Charlie is a grown man and more than a few will say it is her way of securing an income that she doesn’t have to work for. The legal fees of defending the family in court have taken their toll and the fortune she has so heavily relied on over the years is starting to run out at an alarming rate. It had been humiliating enough to have to join the world of work for the first time at her age, even if it had been as a consultant of expensive fabrics and wears in a new Diagon Alley boutique and now _this_. 

What on earth will Draco say?

Would Penny even continue to let her work in her condition or would she be cast aside like the women she had read about over the years and had no sympathy for? At the time, Narcissa had simply believed that they should have been more careful or had a man there to care for them and now she was standing in their ill-fitting shoes. Everything had been so _different_ after Lucius had been sent back to prison and Draco had moved out. For the first time ever, Narcissa felt like her own woman and very quickly had been swept up by that. Charlie had come in looking for a new set of robes for his mother and wanted the best given what she had been through during the war. Narcissa is no fan of Molly Weasley but appreciated that the boy respected his mother, something she has always found to be vitally important and had spent a good hour picking out the best thing for him. He had flirted shamelessly the whole time and by the time the robes were wrapped up and ready to go Narcissa was flirting back. One thing had led to another and they had begun seeing each other in a very casual way and now she is here, pregnant, and hiding in her own house despite it being empty and locked up. 

*

It would be easy to get rid of the baby and pretend nothing has ever happened because Charlie has gone back to Romania for three months to wrap up his job before he transfers permanently to Wales but that wouldn’t be fair to him and Narcissa entirely convinced that she wouldn’t like another child. It has never been an option before. Malfoys didn’t have multiple children because it separates the fortune and in their eyes weakens the name. Lucius had always made sure that there was no chance of Narcissa conceiving another child after she had Draco. What Narcissa wanted was never really, well, relevant. 

Now, the decision is at least partly hers. After turning more thoughts over in her head, she forces herself to write to Charlie a week after she gets the news. She addresses him as Charles to show importance, and insists he make time to visit her as soon as physically possible, making it crystal clear that waiting until he returns to the country is simply not an option. Perhaps it is the sternness of her letter, or perhaps it is the shock that she would write to him at all given they what they had is not exactly a relationship but Charlie appears the following morning. He has obviously travelled by the eight am international portkey and is on Narcissa’s doorstep by nine. Despite having spent the time since she had sent the letter off planning what she is going to say to him the words fly out of her head the moment she sees him. 

He just looks so _young_ when compared to herself. 

“Well, are you going to invite me in or are we just going to stand here? I’ve had a bit of a long journey you see.”

Wordlessly, she opens the door further and allows him into the house. Even over a year after the war ended and she had to free her elves it still feels strange and unnatural to answer her own front door. Leading him to the newly decorated sitting room she slumps into a chair and gestures for him to take the one opposite her. Given the news she is about to deliver, being dignified and proper seems a little redundant now. He is about to see her at her weakest anyway. “I didn’t expect you so soon. I’m impressed.”

“You said it was urgent,” he reminds her, and she nods while chewing her lower lip. It is something she would have been slapped for when her mother was alive, as it is so _unbecoming_. “We don’t usually talk so much so I figured it was.”

There is a smirk there that makes Narcissa want to giggle like a schoolgirl and slap it of his face at the same time. The matter is nothing to laugh about but of course he doesn’t know that because she is sitting there sinking into her own chair afraid to tell him. She thinks of the first time she took him home on a whim, let him kiss her neck and worship her body. Narcissa has been raised to believe that he is not good enough to even sit next to her and yet she had allowed him to make love to her, see her smile, and get to know her in a way. 

“I’m pregnant,” she says quietly, deciding to get it out there quickly so they can decide what in Merlin’s name they are going to do about it. Charlie stares at her and then goes incredibly pale. His freckles stand out against his pale skin and to Narcissa, frankly, the man looks terrified. Looking from her still flat abdomen to her face he opens and shuts his mouth several times before breathing out deeply and clapping his hands together.

“Well, I guess I knew this had to be big but I still didn’t really expect that. How far along?”

It is better than Narcissa is expecting if she is honest with herself. He might have asked if it is his after all. They were not exactly together together even if they were _together_ , and if she is willing to sleep with him he has no reason not to think she might sleep with others as well. That appears to be how the younger generations work these days and being with Charlie is already so far from normal for her. 

“Nine weeks gone. I don’t know what it is. I just know that I’m pregnant. I confess to being shocked about it. I’m hardly too old to have a child but I’m not, well, young either,” she says meekly, suddenly feeling so much younger than she is, because she is going to have to make choices and someone else has always done that for her before now. The responsibility is a heavy and somewhat uncomfortable weight.

“Wow, a baby. You know, I never expected to have children. Never saw myself as that sort of guy,” Charlie says, rubbing his hands together and looking around the room, anywhere but at Narcissa. Part of her wants to scream about how he should have thought of that before he engaged in unprotected sex but then the same can be said for her as well. It also freezes her insides because she simply _cannot_ raise a fatherless child. It would destroy what is left of her fragile reputation, and suggest that as well as the father not caring to be around, that Narcissa simply doesn’t know who he is. It is bad enough that the child will be born out of wedlock but that seems common these days, bordering on becoming normal given the influx of Mudbloods in their society but still a child without a father at all would be a terrible _shame_ upon her and Draco by extension.

“Well you’re going to be one in about seventh months, unless you would rather I-”

“No! You’re not terminating it!” Charlie screeches as he gets to his feet and towers over Narcissa, his face suddenly flushed with colour as he glowers down at her. “It is a shock! A shock but a child is a blessing. Every child is a blessing!”

 _Every child is a blessing_. It rings in Narcissa’s ears as Charlie sits down again and she closes her eyes. All purebloods grow up hearing that, and begrudgingly she feels a slither of respect for Arthur and Molly Weasley. It seems they are still getting some things right. 

“I can’t raise a fatherless child.”

“Fatherless? Who said anything about the kid growing up without a dad? I plan to be here, thank you very much, and if you try to stop me then I’ll see you in court!”

Narcissa is reeling. She hadn’t expected Charlie’s reaction to be so fiery and _positive_. “I wouldn’t stop you, if you wanted to be here for the child. I couldn’t raise it alone and I won’t, but…I have been thinking and I think I would like to have another child. Draco doesn’t need me anymore and…in many ways I didn’t get to raise him anyway.”

“I’m not a man to dodge his responsibilities. It takes two to make a baby. It seems that we are having one, shock or not,” Charlie says calmly. 

She nods and relaxes a little, loosening muscles she didn’t realised were tensed in the first place. It seems crazy, having a baby with a Weasley who could just about be her son but it is happening. People will talk and gossip and say many terrible things about her. At some point she will no doubt have to deal with Molly Weasley who is going to be the grandmother of her child despite only being a few years older than Narcissa herself. For now though, Charlie is here, being an adult about things, and they can start to plan for their unexpected addition and where they go from here. It all feels very surreal. 

“Well then, we’re having a baby I guess. I’d like a girl since I’ve already raised a boy but given your family, well I guess we will see,” she says softly, trying to lighten the mood a little.

Charlie grins and inclines his head slightly, “Yeah, you never know Gin might have changed things. I’ve got two nieces by my oldest brother now you know so you might just be in luck. Can we start with healthy though? Healthy will be enough for me.”

She laughs and suddenly feels more like herself again, brighter, even though they haven’t even broached the subject of how things will work or what is going to become of their relationship. There are financial implications abound given how Narcissa’s funds are running out and how costly children are, how costly it is to send the baby to Hogwarts when the time comes but she doesn’t worry about all of that, not now. She has told him, and that is a start. The start of what she doesn’t know but it is certainly a start.


End file.
